As many have noticed, Blogger Buzz announced the other day that Blogger Beta is now "feature complete" with FTP support, and that classic Blogger users notably FTP users should be able to move over to Beta soon.
But what about the migration of classic Blogger users who don't use FTP but haven't been given the option to migrate for other reasons, e.g. team blogs or (as in my case) large blogs? I don't know... it would make sense that all existing users will be able to move soon, not just FTP users, but does anyone know?
Also, it's good that we now have labels, comment feeds, privacy restrictions etc (and as my pal Kirk has noticed, label feeds), but does the "feature complete" announcement mean Google are now not going to introduce any further features for a while? For example, are they sticking with backlinks and not introducing any trackback facility? What about proper management of uploaded images?
It's interesting to take a look at Blogger's original list of features for users to vote for, on their Features and Suggestions page. It seems a bit out of date (e.g. the reference to custom domain name, which I guess means publishing using Blogger via FTP, which has of course been available for yonks).
Most of the items on that list, which presumably are organised in a "just click the blob" format because they're the most commonly requested, have certainly been addressed in Beta. But the ability to upload other files besides images hasn't been provided, nor excerpts, nor export/import to other blogging platforms. I wonder if the "feature complete"-ness statement means we won't be seeing those features any time soon?
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2 comments:
Hmmm, interesting that you post here echos my frustration as the manager/owner of a team blog. I was really anticipating the new features and looking forward to implementing them, patiently waiting my turn. I even announced them to my team.
I had read that we had to wait our turn to cross over to the beta and was happy to let others go first to work out any bugs. Imagine how I feel now that I've learned large blogs and team blogs are last on the list to cross over, if ever.
In addition, I have been so frustrated with the editing/posting tool lately. A simple post will throw up so many errors (block quotes and uploading images especially tricky) that it often takes me hours to put up a single post when it should take minutes.
I am looking into migrating away from their service to WordPress. Any advice or opinions on this?
True, Teri, have you had any news about moving over yet?
In a way I'm glad I still can't (as of today no go), as else I'd have to really get to grips with the Beta code properly in order to get my highly customised template to work in Beta, and it looks very very hard ewwwwww!
I'm surprised you've had so many problems with editing etc on old Blogger though. Maybe it's temporary server problems that they've now fixed?
I've not tried Wordpress properly - started to, then decided I didn't have time & have stuck with Blogger so far. That may change, but we'll see... I still think Blogger are very good, though, especially the Beta.
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